Gunmetal Grey
by IWearOdango
Summary: The death of a new friend leaves the Senshi rattled, particularly because her death was at the hands of the Yakuza, not the supernatural. Feeling powerless, Usagi vows to avenge her death by joining the dark underworld that killed Akane: as a vigilante.
1. Simply Been Grey

The radio filtered monotonously in the background of Minako's apartment, and none of the girls paid it any attention. They sat listlessly, silently, close enough together that too-long locks of hair fell on each others' shoulders, thighs sandwiched thighs, arms enfolded waists, heads rested on laps. A cold March breeze whistled with the ferocity of a train's steam, so high up the apartment complex, moving grey clouds across a sky that hadn't really had a morning at all. It had simply been grey since Tokyo awoke to its day.

Minako pressed the heel of her palm against her eye to quell a tear, and Ami tried to offer her a smile to counter it, pushing her fingers through the blonde girl's fringe to free her face from its cover.

"I think," Usagi tried to say, voice cracking a little, "Akane would tell us that we should be doing something _constructive_ like downing jello-shots or cheating at mini-put and antagonizing the clerks or defacing public property…"

A broken laugh burst from Rei's throat at the cheeky suggestion she knew to be true and through watery smiles, the girls all nodded and rubbed at their eyes harder, choking on shuddering breaths that almost didn't allow for giggles.

"We should just be doing something to honour her memory and what she would have wanted instead of this," she finished lamely, chewing on the inside of her lip. Usagi closed her eyes. They stung. "She wouldn't want us sad. Maybe _mad_; like, go-and-yell-at-the-ocean-and-kick-fire-hydrants-until-its-out-of-your-system-mad, but not sad."

Makoto grinned at their leader, nose and cheeks still pink from crying. _She was right._ More and more often these days, Usagi was right and it both made Makoto warm with pride and also tingle with apprehension of the future.

"This shouldn't have happened," Ami muttered, hollow. "We should have been able to do something- I mean, I know it wasn't Senshi business, but I still feel like we could have done something different for Akane-"

Usagi reached over and snagged Ami's hand to squeeze it, noting the dissimilarities between them: Ami's fingers delicate and well-manicured and clean, Usagi's own replete with chipped nail polish and chewed cuticles.

"We'll figure this out," the blonde leader promised. "I'll figure this out."


	2. He Understood Loss

The sound of the front door clicking quietly into place concretely alerted Usagi of Mamoru's return home, but the spicy smell of Moroccan take-out preceding him informed her first. Smiling down at her chipped nails from where she had been idling at the kitchen counter debating preparing coffee for him, she moved to the over-head cupboard to instead pull out the loose-leaf tea to accompany their meal. The fresh scent of mint surged from the small white ceramic when she pried loose the stoppered lid. Through the window over the sink, the Tokyo skyline glittered sharply, seemingly so far away and yet always too close and always there.

When she turned around from flicking the kettle on to boil, he was standing in the archway of the kitchen entrance with his tie already missing, collar opened and loose around his neck to reveal the silver chain she'd bought him Christmases ago. His leather shoes were gone and he was bare-foot on the tile.

"Excuse me, miss," he teased, lowering the hot brown-bagged parcels to the counter by his hip and sidling up to Usagi. "I didn't know there was going to be a Goddess here when I got back. Have you seen my girlfriend anywhere?"

She set her jaw, raising a coy eyebrow. "Sorry. No girlfriends around here. Haven't seen one. But if you like, I could stay here with you tonight…?"

Pushing herself onto her toes, she caught him by the shoulders and pressed a hard kiss to his mouth. He returned it earnestly before pulling back and snickering. "Okay, as long as you don't tell my girlfriend. She'd go totally insane if she knew I was with this gorgeous girl."

"You're lucky I love you," Usagi deadpanned, planting her open hand directly over his face and giving a playful shove which he hammed up for her benefit, flailing away as if she had pushed with greater force. "And you're also lucky you brought Moroccan home. I'll let the girlfriend comments slide. This time," she added over her shoulder as she began unbagging dishes.

"How are the girls doing?" Mamoru wondered, dropping into his customary dining chair. He watched her back as she moved around the counters from the sink to the stove to the center island, taking out dinner plates and filling tea cups with boiling water and ladling out the Styrofoam and tin dishes. She wore a long sweater-dress that clung to her hips mercilessly and had tied her long odangoed pig-tails up into sets of loops. Usagi shrugged, neck back-and-forthing as she tried to answer.

"Not well. None of us are, really. It's still very fresh," she explained, speaking of Akane's death. "It's barely been two weeks. The funeral was only last week. Police are still calling to ask questions. It's very-"

"I know," Mamoru supplied, truly sorry for Usagi and the other girls too. He had only met Akane three or four times during the past year that she had become friends with the girls, but he understood that they had been close nonetheless. And more than anything else, he understood loss.

"I don't want you to be-"

"I know," Usagi interrupted, smiling unsurely but giving him a warm look. She put down his plate in front of him before leaning down and kissing him again, lingering. "I know. Thank you."

She sniffed quickly to clear herself of overwhelmance and then sat down too, skewering a piece of lamb with her fork enthusiastically. "How was the hospital?"

Mamoru rolled his eyes to the crown molding. "More swamped than usual. A fucking nightmare, actually."

Usagi paused with her fork part-way to her mouth. "No satisfaction in healing the world's sick today?"

He scoffed, leaning so he could throw his arm over the back of the chair and tilt his neck back to try to relieve the crick. When he spoke, he motioned with the teacup in his right hand, droplets of pale green mint tea sloshing over the side and onto the table. "Not when the bastards are all Yakuza."

She put down the uneaten piece of lamb. "What? They're-"

"Yeah," he sighed. "Some kind of turf-related shit is going on in the southern districts right now and every other case of GSWs or stabbing or what-have-you is all in-fighting between Yakuza under-bosses trying to off each other. I dunno. It's pretty fucked up. And the issues are moving into the city core. Motoki says some of the guys hanging in the arcade- young, teenage guys- look like they're rolling either _already with_ or _trying to join_ Yakuza."

"That's such bullshit. When they recruit kids," she seethed.

He nodded. "I know. But they can pay for their treatment. They're not exactly short on cash. We can't refuse them. I wish we could. I guess we can only hope that once I stitch them back up, they're back on the street getting _killed._"

Usagi nodded, completely numb, thinking of Akane.


	3. And Exhaled Blue

Rei dug her fingers aimlessly into the material of the duffel bag balanced on her lap over and over, watching the imprints of her nails fade away each time slowly. It was sunny and very cool. March had been clear but cold so far. On the avenue around her, a hair salon, art supply shop, artisan bakery, and bicycle repair store all offered clear glass fronts, cloyingly sweet or chemical smells, and normalcy. The dance studio in front of her only offered pain. It was too soon.

"I don't think I want to go to class anymore," she confided. Usagi nodded in understand and sat down beside her, silent. Eventually, Minako sat on her other side and the three girls watched as traffic passed in between them and the studio. Other girls walked through the front door without any problem, climbing the stairs to the second-story loft where class had begun two and half minutes ago.

Three minutes ago. Four minutes ago. Seven minutes ago. Ten minutes ago.

Rei waited for Usagi to fidget, to get impatient, to get fed up, but it never came. The blonde leader only sat in silence some more, before resting a hand on Rei's shoulder finally. On the inside of her collar where Usagi's fingers hit bare flesh fleetingly, Rei could feel how cold her friend's hand was.

Thinking about the months they had come to this building and climbed those steps for dance class every Tuesday and Thursday with Akane, all the smoke-breaks they had accompanied Akane on, standing by unparticipatory and laughing with her as she inhaled and exhaled blue, all the cheeky bump-and-grind moves and pole-tricks they'd been shown as part of the strip-aerobic dance class, the stories she told of her real-life gigs in downtown Tokyo-

"Okay. We don't have to go."

Relief washed over Rei, and she realized that she had been waiting for Usagi to approve the decision.

"We can find another class." Usagi knew it was the helplessness that Rei was feeling that kept her from being able to go inside anymore- the helplessness that Rei didn't know how to handle, how to change. Rei simply didn't _do_ helpless. "We could try pottery. Or yoga. Mina? Whadda you think?"

Minako smiled, standing and shouldering her own duffel bag. "Yoga sounds good. Right now, lunch sounds better."


	4. Stainless Steel Something

She felt useless.

Usagi's skin crawled. The fluorescent lights of public buildings made her eyes ache. The rattling whir of speeding subway trains jarred her ankles inside her leather boots. She gagged at the too-sweet taste of chewing gum. Everything was either too much or too little, and nothing seemed right anymore.

She couldn't do anything.

Her days were spent playing house-wife, running errands like shopping and picking up mail and signing cheques and washing loads of laundry, and she didn't mind any of it. She liked being able to make a home for herself and Mamoru. She liked having some free time instead of being chained to school or a dead-end desk job. She painted their living room a deep russet colour and assembled bookshelves from some Swedish furniture company for Mamoru's office.

She saw everything as pointless.

After some prompting from Mamoru, she had gotten more shelves and started stocking them with things she liked as well; stacks of manga, paperback romances and pulp mysteries eventually became interspersed with university text books on political science, demography, sociology. She reasoned that it was cheaper to just get the books instead of paying for tuition, since one day she would rule the earth and it wouldn't matter if she had a degree or not, only if she knew how to do it.

She felt disconnected.

She tried to learn to cook better; her simple repertoire of curries and pancakes expanded eventually, and along with the expansion came new kitchen gadgets courtesy of an overjoyed Makoto, always pleased to encourage Usagi, give suggestion or a new recipe, or make a present of a shiny new stainless-steel _something_. The blonde Senshi leader wasn't a pro by any means, but at least now she could try to make something different every night.

She was aimless.

Supernatural activity in Tokyo was nil of late; no disturbances, disappearance, demons, or deaths. Well, Dark Moon-related deaths, that is. Rei monitored the sacred fire for visions, Ami ran computer scans over the city, Minako kept an eye on all the tabloids for sci-fi coverage that hit a little too close to home and Makoto pored over the newspapers. Usagi delegated, and her soldiers all reported to her, but she felt useless. There wasn't anything to do when she wasn't needed for constant patrolling as Sailor Moon. She itched with inaction.

She had no power.

Without youma in the interim between her days of Senshi work and the future time the crescent moon would glow at her forehead, symbolizing her ascension to the throne, she was just waiting. She never thought she would rue the stasis. When she was young, she had yearned for normalcy. Young. What a joke. She wasn't even twenty yet.

It was part of the reason she had jumped at Minako's suggestion to join some sort of class to keep busy and active; strip-aerobics had just fallen into their laps and with it, Akane.


	5. Needed Justice Served

The interrogation rooms down the hall in the Yashoda police station were rank with stale smoke and sweat. The linoleum chairs they had her seated at in the waiting room weren't much better, but at least she wasn't in a glass box being observed. After all, it wasn't actually an interrogation.

"We just need to ask you a few more questions before we close the case."

_ Close the case._

She closed her eyes. Nothing was going to be done about this, she knew. Pushing one of her long pig-tails over her shoulder, she regarded the obese man in business slacks and a sweat-ringed shirt, gun protruding from the holster underneath the olive green jacket as he half sat on the arm of the chair in front of her. Behind them, officials answered telephones and filed paper work at desks.

Usagi bit her lip, tasting hints of her lip balm. "What do else do you need to know?"

"Do you have any idea why someone would want to hurt Ms. Kashanji? Did she have any known enemies?"

She couldn't help being sullen. All of this was laughable. Their 'investigation' was still going nowhere. Akane wouldn't see any justice done. And Usagi's stomach turned at injustice; she wasn't a Sailor Soldier for nothing. True, it was all fated and destiny and training had brought her to where she was today: wiser, harder, practiced and more ready than before- but she had needed justice served even before she'd stumbled across Luna on her way to school years ago.

"I'm not a criminal profiler. Why don't _you_ tell me if every scum-bag asshole Yakuza who gets off on killing dancers because he can would constitute a possible 'known enemy' to Akane, in the eyes of the Tokyo police?"

The detective frowned, before producing a binder of clear-slip pages covering photographs: mug shots. He flipped to a section marked by a blue divider, then flipped further still, searching for a date and case number before turning the binder over and offering it to Usagi.

"These three men are the Yakuza most known to frequent the strip club Ms. Kashanji worked at. Do you remember at any time ever seeing them with her socially, outside of working hours? Did she accept rides home from any of them, date any of them?"

She looked down at the empty eyes, caustic smirks, and profiles and didn't recognize any of them; she'd never seen Akane become friendly with any patrons, and knew she hadn't accepted rides. These men were strangers to her. These men had probably been strangers to Akane too, and one of them had killed her in the parking structure across the street from the club two and a half weeks ago.

The plastic sliding beneath her fingers, she felt her power returning to her.

"I need a minute to look over these," she stalled, giving the officer sad eyes. They worked and he nodded, turning away to refill his coffee cup at the simmering, aged hot plate in the corner.

Sparing a quick glance at the bustling desk jockeys around her, she pulled the binder low onto her lap, hidden by the plastic backing of the chair, and took out her cell phone. Snap, snap, snap, she took the photos.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, flipping the binder closed after sliding her phone home to her bag, "I don't know any of these men. I can't help you anymore."

But walking out of the station to where Mamoru sat waiting in his car, she knew that she could at last help Akane.


	6. Her Avid Interest

"Usa? You okay?"

She wasn't. She was thinking. She was planning. She was deciding. But she wasn't sure yet. Usagi bit down gently on the straw between her teeth and smiled around it at Makoto, across the booth.

"When you used to fight in school, did you ever seriously hurt somebody?" the blonde wondered.

Makoto paused, before narrowing her eyebrows at her leader and princess. "How seriously do you mean?"

She shrugged, trying to downplay her avid interest. "Serious."

"I nearly killed someone."

_Bingo._

"What happened?"

The dark-haired girl frowned, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "This guy tried to force himself on a girl at a school dance. It was later, after hours, and no one was patrolling the halls, just the gym where everyone was supposed to be, and he was all over her. She clearly wasn't into it, was scared, and trying to get the fuck away from him. And I just sorta saw red. I broke two of his ribs and one of them punctured a lung. And when we were fighting, we bulldozed a glass-case display for trophies or some other shit- a piece of glass nearly grazed his femoral artery. It coulda been the end of me right then, but the girl defended me, giving her statement and luckily there were cameras set up near the school entrance that caught the fight and showed that he had been the one to drive us into the glass, so it wasn't my fault, but…needless to say I got expelled."

Usagi nodded, rapt.

"I think that was the expulsion that landed me with you, actually," Makoto added, perking up and smiling at her friend. She bumped her knee against Usagi's playfully beneath the table.


	7. But Not Knowingly

Mamoru groaned, swinging his legs up onto the couch and slinging his arm over his eyes. It was dusk outside. He could hear Usagi working away at his punching bag in the corner of the den: the dull slaps of her fists, the hard 'whoomph' of a round-house kick connecting with the side of the bag, her panting breaths and the chain rattling as the bag swung from its ceiling anchorage.

She breathed through her nose in a steady stream, finally catching the bag on its forward momentum and holding it in place, hanging onto it with wrapped knuckles and pressing her cheek against its surface. He moved his arm and watched her chest rise and fall beneath the black sport bra, shining.

"Do you see a lot of people die? Working at the hospital?" she finally asked.

"A fair amount. Probably more than you're used to when you patrol. You get one or two youma a night on average. A few die every day at the hospital, whether trauma or long-term health decline."

She shook her head in the negative, gathering the long-braid she wore for workouts over her shoulder, trying to let cool air touch the sides of her neck.

"That's different. I kill those things. I mean how many deaths do you see that you aren't responsible for?"

"I'm not 'responsible' for any of them. I don't kill them. I just can't help them to live anymore."

"You've never made a mistake?" she wondered, beginning to unbind her knuckle-wraps. He paused.

"So you _are_ asking if I've ever killed a person."

She wasn't sure what to say, just stayed quiet and looked at him. Eventually, he shifted on the couch allowing her space and motioning for her to come to him. Standing in between his opened legs as he sat off the side, he wrapped his arms around her waist and leaned his head against her sternum.

"Maybe I've made a mistake or two that cost a life, but not knowingly. I don't know. I've never euthanized a patient, though. I've thought about it a number of times. Sometimes you see someone and they're in so much pain, or they're in such an irreversible state that you think, 'maybe the only way to help them at this point is to end it for them, because maybe it's what they _want,_' and aren't you supposed to help them? Isn't it your job? But, you know Usa, we could talk about this all night, it's a huge moral dilemma, talking about how to apportion worth and longevity to a life. I don't _think_ I've ever killed a person."

Ducking his head briefly, he silently kissed her stomach. She threaded her unwrapped hands through his hair, looking out the window behind him at the lights of the city gleaming against the darkening purple sky.

"I've killed. Hundreds."

"Youma," he reminded, sensing her odd mood. He knew there was something on her mind.

"Does that change anything? Isn't killing still killing?

"It's like what I said before. Maybe there is such as a thing as 'killing for good.' Killing something evil and threatening isn't wrong. It's justice. It's what you do. It's the role you've been given, and you're strong enough to carry it out."


End file.
